• by Wendy Davis , July 25, 2024

Lawmakers in the Senate on Thursday voted to end debate on a bill that would impose broad restrictions on how tech platforms serve content to minors and handle their data.

The procedural move paves the way for the Senate to vote on the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, which is expected to pass early next week. It's not yet clear whether the House will take up a companion bill.

If enacted, the bill “will be most important updates in decades to federal laws that protect kids on the internet,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said Thursday on the Senate floor.

The Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act combines two previously separate bills -- the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), introduced by Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), introduced by Senators Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) and Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana).

The KOSA provisions, which are particularly controversial, aim to tackle potential harms associated with social media use, including depression, eating disorders, and online bullying.

That portion of the bill would require tech platforms to use “reasonable care” to avoid harming minors via design features such as notifications, automatic playing of videos, personalized recommendations and appearance-altering filters.

Some youth advocates support those requirements, contending they will force tech companies to protect teens from material that could encourage drug use, self-harm or suicide.

But a broad array of critics -- including the Interactive Advertising Bureau, civil liberties groups and tech industry organizations -- have expressed concerns that the bill could unconstitutionally restrict publishers' ability to recommend content.

The First Amendment typically protects all lawful content, including material that might be considered harmful, such as “hate speech,” photos associated with eating disorders, and material discussing drug use.

One major concern raised by critics is that the bill could empower government officials to decide what type of content is appropriate for teens.

Interactive Advertising Bureau executive vice president Lartease Tiffith stated Thursday that the organization “is particularly worried about provisions that may limit free speech, effectively placing government oversight on platform content decisions.”

A coalition including the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation and New America's Open Technology Institute said in a separate letter to the Senate that the restrictions could spur platforms to engage in “aggressive filtering of content,” which would prevent access to “important, First Amendment-protected, educational, and even lifesaving content.”

Critics also argue that the bill could lead tech companies to implement age verification systems, which could compromise people's privacy as well as their ability to access content anonymously.

In May, a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives advanced KOSA, but lawmakers suggested at the time that the bill could face significant changes.

Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-New Jersey) said at the time that the bill “runs the risk of creating additional harm” to young people by giving social media companies an incentive to suppress material.

He added that the measure “could cause social media companies to over filter content, out of an abundance of caution about legal risks.”

The other portion of the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, COPPA 2.0, would prohibit websites and apps from collecting personal information -- including data stored on cookies, device identifiers and other pseudonymous information used for ad targeting -- from teens between the ages of 13 and 15, without first obtaining their explicit consent.

That portion of the bill would also ban targeted marketing to children and teens, and would require tech companies to allow users to delete personal information from users under the age of 17.

Current federal law prohibits websites and apps from knowingly collecting personal information from children under 13 without parental consent.

The proposed updates would also impose liability if websites and apps have “constructive knowledge” (meaning they should know) that their products are used by minors, but collect data anyway.